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Broader Approach Urged to Reduce Gun Violence

The most effective way to reduce gun violence without significantly curtailing Second Amendment rights is to treat the problem as a public health issue, like smoking or drunken driving, rather trying to profile potential shooters, according to a report released Thursday by a panel of experts who were commissioned by the American Psychological Association to study the issue in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., massacre.

The panel reviewed evidence on a wide variety of interventions intended to reduce violence, including suicides and homicides, in schools and in the workplace. It concluded that trying to predict who will act out by profiling was unreliable, and that more systemic preventive policies were far more effective.

The report offers a list of such policies, including legal changes like tighter background checks on gun sales, and programs in schools to teach nonviolent conflict resolution. The report also sharply criticized the lack of government money to study firearm violence.

“There’s been so much focus on crisis response, on getting to the scene on time and fortifying our schools, and that’s not going to take care of the problem,” said Dewey G. Cornell, a clinical psychologist and professor of education at the University of Virginia, who led the panel. “We need to focus on prevention more broadly, before the violence, to have a real impact.”

“It’s the most comprehensive and balanced analysis I’ve seen on gun violence in America, and it shows just how hard this problem is and how difficult it will be to solve,” said J. Reid Meloy, a forensic psychologist at the University of California, San Diego, and editor of the International Handbook of Threat Assessment.

One of the newer interventions that the report highlights is called behavioral threat assessment, which is used at an increasing number of schools and workplaces around the country. When a student or employee openly threatens others or shows evidence of planning an attack — researching it online, buying supplies — a behavioral assessment team gets the person help immediately, whether through counseling or more intensive therapy, and monitors the progress.

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On campuses, that team typically includes an administrator, a member of the mental health staff and someone from school security. When necessary, the team coordinates with the local police to have the person involuntarily hospitalized.

In the wake of mass shootings, states like Virginia and Illinois have mandated that universities assemble threat assessment teams; Virginia just passed a law to mandate such services in schools at all levels.

This is considered secondary prevention — intervening if troubling behavior is noticed. So-called primary prevention includes conflict resolution programs, which have significantly reduced fights at some schools, and mental health screening, to try to identify young people who are at risk of depression.

The authors acknowledge that such measures will not catch everyone before an action. The Newtown gunman, for instance, lived and plotted in his basement, and it is not clear whether he qualified for any psychiatric diagnosis, as troubled as he was. But a commitment to preventive measures, Dr. Cornell said, would reduce the overall number of cases in the same way that such measures have worked to reduce smoking and drunken driving.

The panel called for a number of changes to gun laws, including prohibitions on ownership for domestic violence offenders, people convicted of violent misdemeanors, and those with mental disorders who are thought to be a threat to themselves or others.

“It really comes down to a question of political will,” Dr. Meloy said. “Until we have the political will to move legislation and a commitment on the part of the general public to do so, these changes are not going to occur.”

A version of this article appears in print on December 12, 2013, on Page A24 of the New York edition with the headline: Broader Approach Urged To Reduce Gun Violence. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe